2022

Photo by: CJ Dayrit (Unsplash)

 

South Africa’s constitutional democracy debate: echoes of an inglorious past

Some prominent politicians from South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) recently questioned the role of the courts in the constitution. In January, tourism minister Lindiwe Sisulu insulted the judges as “colonised” for enforcing the constitution, which she blamed for continued black deprivation 28 years into democracy.

Later, Sihle Zikalala, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal province, called for a return to parliamentary democracy. He accused the (“unelected”) judiciary of frustrating government’s transformation agenda. They both sit on the ANC’s national executive committee, its highest decision-making body between national elective conferences.

They may well be testing the waters ahead of the next elective conference in December. But, nothing excuses the short-sighted irresponsibility of such utterances, and the ghastly consequences that may ensue. If South Africa is tempted by these options, it will be discarding centuries of struggle aimed at establishing a democratic system in which public power is regulated by law.

Since the origins of communal life, the regulation of public power has challenged humanity. Power has developed from the brute force of the strongest bully in a clan, to the patriarchal dominance of traditional leadership, to the authoritarian dictates of monarchs and autocrats. Divine and secular monopolies of untrammelled authority have been overthrown.

The inexorable trend has been to secure a degree of monitoring and regulation of the exercise of public power.

Of critical significance has been the establishment of popular representation in national governments. A landmark is found in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of the late 1600s. It established parliamentary dominance over the monarch in Britain. Another is the emphatic elimination of the French aristocracy about a century later.

The French Revolution was accompanied by a “declaration of the rights of man and the citizen”. The American Bill of Rights developed gradually through a series of constitutional amendments from the 1800s.

‘Parliamentary sovereignty’ in Britain was counter-balanced by the rights-infused concept of the rule of law . Decolonisation in Africa and Asia used models of governance based on universal suffrage, and a protected core of inalienable rights.

Regulating public power

Perhaps the most far-reaching revolution has been the most recent shift to participatory democracy after the fall of the Soviet empire in the 1990s. This coincided with the last gasps of racist hegemony with the independence of Namibia and the formal freedom of South Africa.

These interconnected events led to a rash of constitution-making throughout central and eastern Europe , and African members of the Commonwealth. There were fundamental elements common to all their constitutions. These were:

  • universal suffrage;
  • the protection of civil and political rights;
  • a measure of the separation of powers to balance the authority of the legislature, executive, and judiciary; and
  • the designation of the courts as final arbiters of the limits of the constitutional authority of government.

This shift was a huge stride towards the responsible and accountable exercise of public power. It allowed the most vulnerable in society to feel a degree of protection. It opened the space for public benefit organisations to use the law to seek social justice. This is particularly vital given that almost all states today have heterogeneous populations. They are made up of diverse ethnic, religious, cultural and other groupings, with unequal bargaining power.

Debating democracy

A constitution is only as good as the measure of effective protection it gives to those who differ, even radically, from the policies of the government.

Naturally there were many obstacles in implementing and enforcing such schemes. There have been both partial and almost complete reversions to the unjust patterns of the past. Hungary and Poland are prominent examples in Europe. Populist autocracy has proven very tempting, particularly in those countries formerly part of the Soviet Union, led by Russia.

Paradoxically, the picture in Commonwealth Africa is slightly less depressing. This, despite obvious tensions and challenges in realising the grandiose ideals in the constitutions of southern Africa, which migrated northwards on the continent.

Until now, none of these shortcomings has seriously questioned the fundamental principles of participatory democracy. These principles lie at the heart of such political compacts. There have been instances of party politicians directing their ire at the courts, accusing the judiciary of exceeding its authority. But, the constitutional fundamentals have remained generally intact.

Have the intemperate and destructive comments of Sisulu and Zikalala shifted the ground?

In particular, the call for a return to parliamentary sovereignty marks an irrational and dangerous retrogression. Parliamentary sovereignty authorises the majority to make laws unrestrained by legal limitations. This was the system imposed on South Africa by Britain in 1910. Then the electorate represented only about 20% of the male population.

Parliamentary sovereignty in the hands of this minority allowed the rampant development of apartheid policies, laws and executive action. They decimated the rights of black South Africans.

Their damaging effects linger still. The blatant racism diminished the dignity of all South Africans. The scale of its horror prompted President Nelson Mandela’s inaugural comments that: “Never, never, and never again” would the country go down the route of injustice and evil, whether approved by a majority or not.

The constitution was painstakingly negotiated, with hard bargaining over a four-year period. There were no clear winners, but grudging agreement by every delegation on basic rules of engagement. Critically, these included the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law. They upheld the protection of human dignity, equality, and freedoms, non-racialism, non-sexism, and universal adult suffrage to ensure multi-party democratic governance. These are the founding values of the country’s constitutional democracy. Without this framework, chaotic social and economic destruction would have been the legacy.

The imperative of judicial review

From these values flow the necessity of an entrenched bill of rights and the courts’ authority to review all acts of public power against the constitution. The judiciary has performed this task admirably , often requiring government to tackle socio-economic injustices. In no instance has it inhibited lawful actions which seek to change the wicked patterns of the past. Nor has it strayed onto parliament’s or the executive’s terrain.

The abject failure to achieve meaningful change lies overwhelmingly with a corrupt  and ineffective executive, not with the courts.

Sisulu, Zikalala and those who rally to their cause should ask themselves how they would respond if

  • their mortal enemies achieved a parliamentary majority, by electoral or other means;
  • they had no basic rights to protect their dignity, equality, freedom of association, of expression, of movement and to vote;
  • the agents of the parliamentary majority locked them up without trial. If they took their property, denied their children access to school, prevented them from swimming at a beach or attending a soccer match, all on arbitrary grounds.

Without the law interpreted and enforced by the courts, their only resort would be to physical force. Of course they must be assuming they would be the representatives of the parliamentary majority. Given the decline in ANC support, this is a far-fetched idea. But even if they were in such a powerful position, how would they deal with those who opposed their policies and laws?

Those who peddle such dangerous ideas should be countered at every opportunity by reminders of what was done in the name of a legislative majority under apartheid, and elsewhere.

 

By   :  Hugh Corder (Professor Emeritus of Public Law, University of Cape Town)

Date :  April 18, 2022

Source:  The Conversation 

https://theconversation.com/south-africas-constitutional-democracy-debate-echoes-of-an-inglorious-past-180802

 

How to Protect the Hope for Girls' Education in Afghanistan

The Taliban, heavily influenced by the Haqqanis, will continue using Afghan girls’ education as a bargaining chip on matters such as international recognition, financial sanctions, and aid.

Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan six months ago, the educational dreams of millions of girls have been dashed. In late March, the group reneged on its promise to allow Afghan girls to attend secondary school. Although it has allowed some women and girls to return to the classroom, the Taliban has begun retooling the curriculum to prioritize religious studies and imposed harsh restrictions on how female students must dress, travel, and even talk on the phone.

If history is any guide, the Taliban will continue using Afghan girls’ education as a bargaining chip on political matters such as international recognition, financial sanctions, and aid. Nevertheless, the United States and its partners can still assist Afghan women, young people, and ethnic minorities who, in the face of Taliban intransigence, still seek an education. Today, many Afghans are turning to advanced technology, including satellite internet and virtual private networks, not only to maintain access to education but also to secure privacy where the Taliban forbid women and girls to study. While limited, virtual school for select Afghan university students in public institutions and local organizations are still operating against the odds.

Afghanistan’s future stability will depend on its ability to reconcile the priorities of the many competing factions and interests within the country. The United States, European Union, and other regional powers should request UNESCO or UNICEF to appoint a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador charged with implementing a steadfast name-and-shame policy aimed at the Taliban to promote peace through education, even where Russia, China, and Iran stay silent. The UN Ambassador should establish a multilateral forum that improves coordination, collaboration, and cooperation among regional powers to invite up-and-coming Afghan teachers and students—whether they remain in Afghanistan or are residing abroad—to live and study conflict resolution at foreign embassies, diplomatic institutes, and universities in South Asia and beyond.

The Role of the Haqqanis in the Taliban's Education Policy

The Taliban’s war on women’s education is reminiscent of its reign in the 1990s, when the group imposed extreme teachings by force. It largely confined women to their homes, with a fortunate minority of girls able to attend underground schools. Now, the drive to restrict women’s education is led by the Haqqani network, a faction of the Taliban more ideologically strident and violent than any that existed in the 1990s. For years, the Haqqanis have cultivated ties to al-Qaeda and to some elements of the Islamic State’s Afghanistan affiliate, known as the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), even facilitating some of ISIS-K’s terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital, including recent activity against Kabul University, a maternity ward, and a girls’ school. 

The Haqqanis, designated by both the United States and United Nations as terrorists, have emerged as the dominant force in the Taliban government. The group’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, heads the powerful Interior Ministry, where he wields control over the nation’s domestic intelligence and military apparatus. A member of Sirajuddin’s network, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, acting Minister of Higher Education, where he is reorganizing Afghanistan’s education system around a strict interpretation of sharia law, imposing curriculum changes, segregating genders in schools, and imposing stringent restrictions on dress and conduct for girls and women. 

In addition to controlling key state institutions, the Haqqanis control a vast international business empire, licit and illicit, and have long enjoyed the backing of other states in the region that view them as a strategic asset. In contrast to the Taliban Political Commission in Doha, the Haqqani-dominated Taliban Military Commission had grown less dependent on Western aid in recent decades and is therefore relatively less susceptible to Western leverage on matters of security, human rights, and education.  They also remain at the forefront of orchestrating campaigns to kill former Afghan government officials and civilians, resulting in the flight of judges, journalists, teachers, and other leaders on whom Afghanistan’s emergent civil society depends.

“The vast majority of Afghan teenage girls have already lost a year of education,” Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, stated in an interview with this author in February, 2022. 

How the United States Can Help

Although the Taliban’s political commission could reform its education policies to gain international legitimacy or aid, it will likely not overrule Sirajuddin Haqqani where he maintains a dissenting opinion.  Even if the Taliban Military Commission remains ensconced in the government, there are other ways in which the United Nations, major and regional powers, and international technology organizations can empower women and girls to make their own choices about ensuring equal rights and education, and live the highest, fullest version of their lives. 

First, the United States, European Union, and other regional powers should call on UNESCO and UNICEF to appoint a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to lead a renewed push for promoting peace through education, while executing an international name-and-shame policy highlight the Taliban’s failed promise to support Afghan girls’ return to school. The UN Ambassador should facilitate multilateral coordination for regional powers to invite up-and-coming Afghan teachers and students—whether they remain in Afghanistan or are residing abroad—to live and study conflict resolution at foreign embassies, diplomatic institutes, and universities in South Asia and beyond. An emphasis on peace education can help prepare Afghans for next-generation leadership on which any fragile interfaith dialogue, nonviolent dispute resolution, and advanced negotiation will depend. Even in minimal form, such a peace-through-education residency program would create a pipeline of leaders skilled at navigating ideological, political, and cultural differences—precisely the skills Afghanistan’s future leaders will need if they are to create a more stable and secure future order. At least half of the international scholarship recipients should be women who have finished their high school or university education, in order to provide a tangible incentive for Afghan women to persevere through secondary school.

In addition, the Ambassador should facilitate a multilateral consultation mechanism that brings together female education leaders and international technology companies to map the virtual school landscape and improve access to online classroom platforms, such as computer assisted instruction and massive open and free courses in Afghan languages based on geopolitical exigency. Information blockades are likely inevitable in Afghanistan in the future, particularly as China has been aggressively trying to sell or gift its advanced Great Firewall Internet filtering and monitoring software to countries in the region. When designed properly, enhanced access to virtual private networks and encrypted online classrooms can help Afghans evade such firewalls and circumvent the Taliban’s extreme ideology, values, and laws—or simply gain access to school. 

By taking these actions to support education of all Afghans, the United States and its allies can promote the aspirations of such next-generation leaders. Fereshteh Forough, who organizes virtual classrooms for women and girls, explains the potential impact of such programs: “Digital citizens can surpass the ideological bent geographical boundaries, preserving women’s rights in the struggle for freedom and security. Gaining such liberation today is possible almost only through education technology, for it keeps our identity private and enables us to connect with the global economy. Virtual classrooms give us hope, for they make our simple goal, to study, a reality, even as the Taliban aim to take away the basic human rights we have fought so hard to gain.”

 

Dr. Melissa L. Skorka is a Senior Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Centre. She served as a Senior Adviser to the former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joseph F. Dunford in the Haqqani Fusion Cell and the International Security Assistance Force from 2011 to 2014.

 

By    :   Melissa L. Skorka

Date : April 13, 2022

Source: Council on Foreign Relations 

https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-protect-hope-girls-education-afghanistan

 

COVID-19: Accelerating the Democratization of Knowledge

While the outside world has quickly evolved, for the last several hundred years, higher education has entailed almost exclusively traditional, paid, in-class education.

History has shown that technological advancement has a standard adoption of 15 years or more in the higher academic setting. Take computers, for example — by the 1950s, computers had advanced enough that both Cobol and Fortran (programming languages still used today) had been developed. It wouldn't be until the 1980s, however, that computers would become commonplace in the university setting. Or take the internet — although it was created in the early 1980s, it wasn't until the early 2000s that the internet became commonly available in schools.

One of the amazing things about technology is that it has the power to widen access to whatever domain to which it is applied. As the gatekeepers to higher knowledge, higher education's reluctance to adopt technology in a timely manner has had the inverse effect of restricting access for many people. While the outside world has quickly evolved, for the last several hundred years, higher education has entailed almost exclusively traditional, paid, in-class education. Over the last decade, that had started to change as educational institutions slowly began to embrace technology — but nothing like what we have seen in the last few years. COVID-19 has completely reshaped the landscape of education.

In a matter of months, the ability to teach online went from an option to an absolute necessity. Many schools scrambled to implement their first learning management system (LMS), find safe and secure online meeting software, equip their instructors with adequate infrastructure and expand their technological footprint. As a month turned into a year of remote learning, people began to see the possibilities of education beyond the traditional classroom. The last few years have seen an unprecedented interest, investment and adoption of educational technology (EdTech).

One of the unique benefits of online learning is its ability to almost infinitely scale. With an online education model, knowledge can be gained without the limitations of geography, the restrictions of classroom capacity or the constraints of the instructor's or student's schedule. Once a course has been created in digital form, it can be delivered to hundreds of thousands of students anywhere in the world on-demand with minimal effort.

The implications for society being able to scale the delivery and sharing of knowledge are huge. While the internet has largely democratized access to general knowledge and the sharing of data and ideas, higher education had been a much slower adopter of that shift. As the world grows increasingly complex and jobs increasingly specialized, lifelong learning is essential — not just to be a capable professional but also a capable member of society.

COVID-19 accomplished in months what had traditionally taken decades for technological adoption in education. Access to higher education knowledge has begun the process of being democratized, making it more available to learners outside the confines of traditional academia. Though most of us can agree that we would have liked to witness this shift under much less duress, this increased availability of knowledge is a small silver lining during an otherwise challenging time.

 

By   :   Christian Gainsbrugh (Co Founder & Cto, Learningcart)

Date  : April 11, 2022

Source :  Newsweek 

https://www.newsweek.com/covid-19-accelerating-democratization-knowledge-1696519

 

Social justice in, through and beyond higher education

Higher education institutions can work individually and together to advance social justice well beyond their campus walls, as Pardis Mahdavi explains

A long-overdue societal awakening has prompted leaders in higher education to take a much-needed look at issues around justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (Jedi). Universities worldwide are starting to release Jedi-related statements and plans on their websites to accompany published numbers on racial, ethnic and socio-economic diversity among their student body.

Some institutions, including Arizona State University, have committed to a whole host of actions to support social justice while requiring Jedi statements for job searches and making diversity training mandatory for all search committees. Others, like my new home, the University of Montana, are upholding Jedi values by focusing on career preparation and internship access for all students, thereby creating more equitable pathways to success. These are all welcome changes that create necessary momentum for the next level: enacting social justice in global higher education and beyond.

  • How to achieve equity in higher education
  • Rekindling passion for equality, diversity and inclusion work
  • If we truly want a level playing field, we must focus on social capital

The changes we are seeing in higher education today reflect a desire to uphold social justice within the academy. How can we harness this powerful energy to inspire higher education to take an even bigger role in not just upholding but actively engaging in and driving meaningful social change?

Here, I offer possible steps for interested members of the academy who want to level-up their engagements with social justice work nationally and globally. Many of these strategies are being deployed by universities on a one-off basis. A holistic approach that embodies all of these through collaboration is sure to bring even more success.

Higher education as a global collective for social justice

Start thinking about higher education as a larger collective with shared goals around upholding social justice – not just in higher education, but in other sectors as well. Work together as a sector to secure a shared seat at the table with policymakers to help set new policies about relevant issues such student loan forgiveness, access to higher education and employment post graduation. These policies can be implemented at the local and university level and can also help to shift national and international discourse. Make policy work a priority.

International cooperation as an imperative

Related to the above, consider international cooperation in higher education as an imperative. An example: the Islamic Republic of Iran is facing heavy sanctions that are now being loosened. The impact of sanctions on higher education is enormous but rarely discussed. With sanctions relaxing, universities across the globe can begin collaborating with their counterparts in places such as Iran to meet the growing needs for graduate studies that Iranian students articulate. Of more than 900,000 students applying for master’s or PhD-level training in Iran, less than 5 per cent could be accepted because Iran lacks the resources and infrastructure to provide for students. Moreover, in the past few years, 33 public universities have closed down 77 STEM majors to women. International collaboration can open up new partnerships with overseas institutions abroad creating new avenues to learning and research opportunities such as those for women in STEM.

Actively challenge oppression

Take an active role in dismantling systems of oppression that uphold inequality. The most obvious example of this would be pay gaps based on gender, race or other marginalised identity groups. An across-the-board look at wages and inequities in hiring practices is a helpful place to start. Requiring diversity statements and training for search committees is an important first action, but it is equally important to look at the entire process from interview onwards. For example, are interviewees given access to questions ahead of time? How is the job ad written? This applies to all hiring and promotion decisions.

Create multiple pathways of progression

Create pathways of success and elevation for all students, faculty and staff. For students, attention to the role of advising, and supporting advice infrastructures, is critical, as is mentorship on career readiness and offering internship opportunities. For faculty and staff, offering clear pathways to promotion and elevation is essential. To do this with intention, institutions can sponsor or offer professional development opportunities, provide coaching and ensure clear signalling of the ways to rise the ranks in different fields.

Dismantle scarcity models

Pay special attention to dismantling scarcity and adversity models. A scarcity model is one that tells individuals or groups within a university ecosystem that only one person or a limited set of people can succeed at a particular initiative. This is increasingly common when it comes to diversity work in higher education. Rather than seeing Jedi as something that should involve everyone, bringing in many voices and fostering collaboration between multiple groups, some have observed that it has become a competition with academy members vying for resources or to be the authoritative voice on diversity work. Finding ways to encourage teamwork – tethering resources to cross-college or multi-institutional engagement, for example – can help to alleviate the pressure that leads to silos and resentment.

Not just upholding but actively engaging with social justice is necessary work. Higher education has started building momentum by enacting institutional initiatives that move the needle. Collaboration, even in and through conflict, and attention to dismantling systems of oppression and creating opportunity can lead the way to deeper change rooted in social justice.

 

Pardis Mahdavi is the dean of social sciences and a professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. She is the incoming provost and executive vice-president of the University of Montana.

 

By   : Pardis Mahdavi

Date: March 24, 2022

Source: Times Higher Education 

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/social-justice-through-and-beyond-higher-education

 

Social movement organizing and the politics of emotion from HIV to Covid-19

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen the rapid growth of collective organizing on the part of patient groups to address scientific and health inequities. This paper considers the emergence of Covid-19 activism as an embodied health movement that draws on and contributes to broader movements for racial, economic and gender justice. Recognizing the central role of emotion in social movements and in the bio-politics of Covid-19, I examine the key presence of the affective domain in social change through three Covid-19 social movement groups. These organizations draw upon anti-racist, feminist, and queer and HIV social movement organizing that position Covid movement building in intersectional histories and futures. I argue that Covid movement activists have built “archives of feeling”—or public cultures of trauma—of commemoration, Covid survivor narratives, and direct action that center affective feelings around grief, representation, and anger, respectively. I suggest that Covid-19 will become a key lens for articulating structural and social inequalities through which broader social movements will leverage their claims for justice—moving towards an integrated social movement. Social movement mobilizing will continue to play a critical role to ensure that the focus in the Covid-19 pandemic shifts from pathogen to society.

 

Dr. Sonja Mackenzie is an Associate Professor in the Public Health Program at Santa Clara University, USA. In 2021, Dr. Mackenzie is a Visiting Scholar and Affiliate Faculty with the Department of Sociology in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at Cambridge University. Her scholarship lies at the intersections of public health, sociology and gender and sexuality studies to analyze and intervene in social and structural inequities in health among racial/ethnic and sexual and gender minorities. Her current projects examine social movements from HIV to Covid-19, building on her 2013 book, Structural Intimacies: Sexual Stories in the Black AIDS Epidemic; and the structural intimacies of LGBTQ kinship. Dr. Mackenzie is the author of numerous peer review publications and public scholarship on social structural patterns of the US Black AIDS epidemic and LGBTQ kinship and health.

 

By   :    Sonja Mackenzie

First published: 03 April 2022 

https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12979

Source : Sociology Compass 

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.12979

 

Book Review: How Social Movements Can Save Democracy: Democratic Innovations from Below by Donatella della Porta

In How Social Movements Can Save Democracy: Democratic Innovations from Below, Donatella della Porta explores how progressive social movements can deepen direct democracy through popular participation. The book repositions social movements as actors within institutional or formal politics and will inspire readers to consider their influence as citizens beyond traditional modes of participation in the public arena, writes Carla Quiroz.

How Social Movements Can Save Democracy: Democratic Innovations from Below. Donatella della Porta. Polity. 2020.

In How Social Movements Can Save Democracy, Donatella della Porta explores some innovative proposals from progressive social movements at a time when various crises challenge existing institutions, party systems have been shaken and democratic conceptions need to be legitimated. This valuable book proposes opportunities for institutions to deepen direct democracy through popular participation: for instance, through referendums ‘from below’ or constitutions.

The book is split into five parts. In the first chapters, the author argues that social and economic crises bring times of change, giving civil society the opportunity to discuss potential innovative contributions. While social movements have been studied as contentious actors, they have also nurtured new ideas. Social movements’ ideas can enter institutional politics to strengthen plurality and contribute to the deepening of democracy.

Della Porta emphasises the importance of democracy through the involvement of citizens. Her argument is focused on how we can restore democracy’s legitimacy and efficacy. Encouraging such participation is important both in and outside existing institutions, and through formal and informal checks, where collective activity can be articulated and demands can be resolved. Della Porta proposes different exchanges between various spheres of action where citizen participation is crucial — for example, through schools, neighbourhoods and factories — while still recognising the political role of social movements.

During economic crises, waves of protest or moral disruption, social and grassroots movements push for political opportunities, increasing their capacity to pursue constitutional powers. In general, constitutions set up relations between the state and citizens and also protect the fundamental rights of the population and ‘common goods’. In this sense, classical sociologists such as Ferdinand Tönnies, Émile Durkheim and Max Weber have paid attention to the origins of constitutions; according to Chris Thornhill, constitutions regulate exchanges between different spheres of action, producing and reproducing power.

Nevertheless, della Porta refuses to think that constitutions are solely political. The author argues that constitutions also need to be supported by collective identification by political communities through popular participation, becoming a symbol of union. To describe how social movements facilitate the progressive aspects of constitutional processes, she provides two examples. The first of these is Iceland, which suffered a financial crash in 2008. This crisis allowed Iceland to reconstitute a social pact through a constitutional process that was highly pluralistic in terms of the background of citizens. The second is the Irish constitutional process, which was also pushed by the crisis. Activating participation through the appropriation of opportunities, resource mobilisation and collective framing emerges as a way to regain political legitimacy and empowerment.

Referendums from below have also been promoted by social movements. Referendums from below are described as direct democracy, involving social movements and civil society organisations in referendum campaigns. Della Porta includes some examples to explain this, including the case of the privatisation of the water supply in Italy, the referendum on Scottish independence and the pseudo-referendum on Catalonian independence. While it is true that referendums are usually a response to political discontent, they can contribute to the reinvention of democratic government through popular participation.

Following this idea, referendums imply an open channel of participation where participatory democracy is promoted by progressive social movements, in contrast to simple delegation by a political elite. Social movements can be successful in promoting referendums themselves, but they can also appropriate referendums that have been promoted by political elites, introducing their own strategies. From time to time, social movements can even be seen as offering a moderate path of contentious action. Della Porta claims that usually social movement scholars have focused on party elites, the media and the public; however, it is important to consider the contribution of citizens or the grassroots as producers of messages too.

In the fourth chapter, della Porta reclaims the historical indifference between two fields of study: the study of political parties and the study of social movements. While studies of political parties mainly focus on elections and activities within institutions, social movements are mainly located outside institutions. However, they are mutually dependent as institutional politics is usually permeated by social movements as actors in the political system. Through this line of thinking, della Porta defines the concept of ‘movement parties’, which emerge as a hybrid of the two. According to Herbert Kitschelt’s definition, ‘movement parties are coalitions of political activists who emanate from social movements and try to apply the organization and strategic practice of social movements in the arena of party competition’.

Movement parties have emerged where crises have been faster and where citizens have supported radical changes. This overlap between political parties and social movements aims to link memberships and organisational actions, integrating institutional politics and ideological militancy. The emergence of this kind of political party is facilitated when economic and political crises produce grievances and people cannot find existing channels of representation in the party system and traditional coalitions. In this context, new movement parties emerge usually on the Left, appropriating opportunities and symbolic resources to put forward claims for social justice, equality and democracy. The author develops these ideas by looking firstly at Podemos as a movement party in Europe, and secondly at Movement towards Socialism (MAS) in Latin America.

How Social Movements Can Save Democracy offers a deeply contextual and theoretical approach, giving examples drawn from across the world. The book’s biggest contribution is opening a reconfiguration of social movements as actors within institutional or formal politics. It also inspires the reader to think about the opportunities associated with political and economic crises as a space of ongoing learning. The book therefore works as a tool to position the reader as a citizen who can influence the use of referendums or other examples of popular participation, challenging the government and political elites as well as traditional modes of participation in the public arena.

How Social Movements Can Save Democracy suggests that crises offer the opportunity for social movements and civil society to co-produce, or at least influence, future institutional changes. Popular participation through direct democracy using more sophisticated techniques could ensure a better quality of democracy: more effective and plural where the grassroots are represented by citizen-led democratic innovations.

 

Carla Quiroz is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. My research interests include social movements, gender and politics in Latin America.

 

By    :  Carla Quiroz  (University of Edinburgh)

Date :  March 27, 2022

Source : LSE Blogs 

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2022/03/27/book-review-how-social-movements-can-save-democracy-democratic-innovations-from-below-by-donatella-della-porta/

 

Photo by: MarkusSpiske (Unsplash)

 

Argentina: A South American Power Struggles for Stability

Argentina is one of Latin America’s largest economies and most stable democracies, but the country has struggled with political dysfunction and financial crises in recent decades.

Summary

  • Peronism, a populist movement established by President Juan Peron in the 1940s, remains the dominant political ideology in Argentina, but several parties with varying philosophies now vie for power.
  • Despite its economic might, Argentina has often struggled to meet its international financial obligations, defaulting on its sovereign debt nine times.
  • Argentina has maintained a close partnership with the United States since the Obama administration, but its relations with the rest of South America have been strained over China’s growing influence in the region

Introduction

Argentina is one of Latin America’s largest economies and an important trading partner for the United States, China, and the European Union (EU). In the post–World War II period, the country’s politics have been dominated by Peronism, a broad and diverse populist movement led by three-time President Juan Peron. Argentina has become one of the most stable democracies in the region, though it continues to struggle with economic mismanagement and political dysfunction. Nonetheless, it remains a strong partner for the United States and a leading power in Latin America, even as its regional relations have become strained over its relationship with China and other issues.

How is Argentina governed today?

After gaining its independence from Spain in 1816, Argentina endured alternating periods of civilian and military rule before transitioning to a civilian-led democracy in 1983.

Today, Argentina is a federal, democratic republic with governing power divided between executive, legislative, and judicial branches. A popularly elected president, who is both head of state and government, wields wide-ranging executive power, including as commander in chief of the armed forces. Presidents serve a term of four years and can be reelected, with some limitations. Legislative authority resides with the National Congress, consisting of a Senate and Chamber of Deputies, while a Supreme Court sits atop an independent judiciary.

Since the 1930s, Argentina’s system of checks and balances has weakened, and political power has become increasingly centralized in the executive. Some political analysts refer to the Argentine system as “hyperpresidentialist [PDF],” a tradition, they say, that stands in the way of needed democratic reforms. Among their concerns is that presidents can pass decrees that have the force of law, allowing them to bypass Congress.

What is Peronism?

Perhaps the most influential political figure in Argentina’s history is Juan Peron, a former military officer who was elected president three times in the post–World War II era. His populist political movement, known as Peronism, draws most of its support from labor unions and the poor and working classes. Political historians attribute much of Peron’s appeal to the charisma of his second wife, Eva, known also as Evita, who advocated for greater labor rights and helped enact several reforms, including Argentina’s women’s suffrage law. Under Peron’s rule, the government intervened heavily in the economy, nationalizing the central bank and several large corporations, expanding health and welfare benefits, and paying off the country’s debt.

Though popular, Peron became increasingly authoritarian, jailing political opponents and restricting press freedoms. Many experts say Peronism has fascist traits, but it remains the dominant political ideology in Argentina, and its leaders have not dismantled the country’s democracy during their time in office.

What are Argentina’s main political parties?

There are two dominant and several emerging parties in Argentina. 

Justicialist Party. The center-left party—formerly known as the Peronist Party—is today part of a broader coalition called Frente de Todos (Front for All), which formed in 2019 to support the presidential campaign of Alberto Fernandez. It was the largest party for nearly forty years until it lost its congressional majority in 2021, and it continues to draw support primarily from the working and lower classes. The party has many factions, and its populist politics have evolved over the decades, but it continues to generally favor greater economic interventionism and social welfare spending.

Radical Civic Union (UCR). The UCR has long been the main opposition of the Peronists and various military-led regimes, and its leaders have won the presidency close to ten times over the past century, most recently in 1999. Today, it is a centrist, progressive party that draws its support largely from the urban middle class and comprises half of the Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change) alliance, which now holds a congressional majority. The party has fractured at times and its platforms have shifted over the years, but it has generally favored limiting spending to reduce the national debt, reforming the judicial system, promoting human rights, and now implementing a vocational training system. 

Others. Additional notable parties include those in the growing Workers’ Left Front - Unity, an alliance of Trotskyist parties; the parties that form the left-leaning Civic Coalition, of which former Minister of Finance Alfonso Prat-Gay is a member; and the center-right Republican Proposal party (PRO). The latter two mainly draw support from the country’s urban centers and are considered emerging political forces. In 2015, PRO leader Mauricio Macri was elected president and introduced a slate of pro-market policies and controversial austerity measures to revitalize the economy and resolve the country’s long-running debt dispute with foreign creditors. 

What political challenges does the country face?

Argentina is considered one of the most stable democracies in Latin America, but the government faces several enduring challenges, including endemic corruption and low levels of public trust. In 2020, Argentina ranked 78 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, tying with states including China and Kuwait. Recent high-profile political scandals include the 2018 Notebooks Case and the COVID-19-related “VIP vaccination” episode. 

What are Argentina’s foreign policy interests?

Argentina’s foreign policy has shifted, sometimes dramatically, with the priorities of each governing coalition. Major areas of focus include:

Regional relations. Argentina is a regional power in Latin America due to the size of its economy; it is a leading trade partner to neighboring Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. It is part of several long-standing regional partnerships, including the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States; the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture; and the Mercosur trade bloc.

However, the election of Fernandez in 2019 heightened regional tensions. In January 2020, he denounced the recognition of Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president; several neighboring states, including Brazil and Colombia, support Guaido’s claim to the presidency over that of Maduro. Fernandez later oversaw Argentina’s withdrawal from the U.S.-supported Lima Group, a group of twelve Latin American countries created to restore democracy in Venezuela,  the following March. At the same time, relations with Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay have been strained by disputes over China’s growing role in Latin America, the future of Mercosur, and maritime boundaries.

International relations. Argentina belongs to the Group of Fifteen (G15), a forum for developing countries, and the Group of Twenty (G20), which comprises twenty of the world’s largest economies. It is also a founding member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the World Trade Organization. It also maintains robust relations with major world powers, including the United States, China, and the EU. 

China and Argentina have become close trading partners in the past two decades, and in February 2022, Argentina officially signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In recent years, Chinese investment in Argentina has been concentrated in the telecommunications, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors, and has included financing for a nuclear power plant and a space station. Between 2005 and 2019, Chinese investment in Argentina totaled $30.6 billion, or nearly 40 percent of all Chinese investment in South America. Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Fernandez have expressed a desire to deepen the comprehensive China-Argentina strategic partnership.

Meanwhile, Argentina remains a major non–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally of the United States, but experts say that bilateral relations seesaw depending on both countries’ political leadership. During the Kirchner administrations in the early 2000s, relations were strained by Argentina’s isolationist foreign policy, its close relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and its stance on Iran. But relations improved under Macri, who engaged with the United States on several fronts [PDF] during the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations. (Argentina and the United States were among twelve countries that voted in 2019 to invoke the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance [PDF] in response to the crisis in Venezuela.) Both U.S. presidents visited Argentina, while Macri’s 2017 visit to the White House was the first by an Argentine leader in nearly a decade. The U.S.-Argentina partnership has remained steady under Fernandez and Joe Biden, with cooperation focused primarily on addressing climate change.

The Argentina-EU partnership remains strong, and areas of cooperation include business, science, and technology. On trade, the EU continues to be a major destination [PDF] for Argentina’s agricultural products and raw materials, and as a member of Mercosur, Argentina is part of ongoing negotiations to ratify a free trade agreement with the bloc.

Political polarization is also a recurring problem. The divisiveness in Argentina, known commonly as la grieta, or the rift, has often led to democratic dysfunction and policy reversals whenever a new administration takes power. For instance, the Macri government was a leading critic of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime; however, President Fernandez has undone many of his predecessor’s policies regarding Argentina-Venezuela relations. 

This polarization has also manifested within parties. Many analysts were surprised to see the public sparring between Fernandez and his vice president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (no relation), over social and economic policies following their party’s poor performance in the 2021 primary elections. 

What is the state of Argentina’s economy?

Argentina is the third-largest economy in Latin America, behind Brazil and Mexico. Its major industries include automobiles, textiles, mining, technology, agriculture, and tourism. Additionally, analysts say there is significant economic potential in the development of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, and related resources, such as lithium.

Argentina has historically shifted between pro-business and populist administrations, which have taken a more heavy-handed role in the economy and increased social spending. Before taking office, Fernandez promised to reverse the austerity measures enacted under Macri. His administration has since increased taxes on exports and high-income households, lowered interest rates, and raised the minimum wage. However, while year-on-year unemployment has fallen recently, the country still has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, and four in ten Argentines live below the national poverty line.

Argentina’s top trading partners are the United States, Brazil, and China. The United States is also Argentina’s largest foreign investor, with more than three hundred U.S. companies operating there. In addition, Argentina is a member of several regional trade groups, including the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Latin American Integration Association, and it is currently a prospective member for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a bloc of the world’s most advanced economies.

What are Argentina’s major economic challenges?

Argentina’s climate for business and investment has worsened in recent years, weakening due to political dysfunction, price and capital controls, high inflation, debt concerns, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, foreign investment dropped to $4.1 billion, down 38 percent from the previous year, and several international companies announced they were downsizing or leaving Argentina amid the country’s ongoing recession. The overall economy has shrunk each year since 2018.

Argentina was one of the ten wealthiest countries per capita in the early twentieth century. However, economists say that its overreliance on commodity exports and unsustainable government spending fueled frequent boom-bust cycles, resulting in political instability and economic decline in the decades that followed.  

Successive administrations have struggled to keep the country’s finances in check during periods of economic turmoil. As a result, Argentina has often failed to pay its international creditors; it has defaulted on its sovereign debt nine times over the last two centuries, one of the most frequent in the world to do so. The largest default occurred in December 2001, when the government reneged on nearly $93 billion in loans, causing Argentina to lose access to international debt markets. To restore its ability to borrow, Macri cut export taxes, lifted currency controls, and negotiated a debt settlement with holdout creditors in 2016. While these actions were successful, Argentina lost access again following the country’s default in May 2020. 

As of December 2020, Argentina’s total national debt was $336 billion, or nearly 90 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Of that, the government owes $45 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and $2.4 billion to the Paris Club, an informal group of private creditors.

 

By: Diana Roy 

Date: February 7, 2022

Source: Council on Foreign Relations 

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/argentina-south-american-power-struggles-stability

 

Universities: The often overlooked player in determining healthy democracies

We’ve been hearing recently about the possibility that the United States — assumed to be a prime example of democracy — is in real peril of collapse. Coming into 2022, we find ourselves in the midst of a worldwide democratic recession.

Democracy is vulnerable and fragile. It requires maintenance, participation, vigilance and constant re-assertion. If left unattended, it can drift, or be pushed, towards illiberalism and ultimately authoritarianism.

When discussions turn to the pillars of democracy, folks will often name the free press, the legislature and the judiciary as the institutions that serve as a vital check and balance on power. Named with much less frequency is the academy.

A country’s institutional commitment to academic freedom is a key indicator of whether its democracy is in good health.

Democracy in danger

If we look at the United States as an example, the warning signs are clearly present and add to a growing body of evidence that the country’s democracy is in danger.

In a new twist on the McCarthyist Cold War era — when there was little tolerance for dissent, suspected communist ties and many academics were forced to sign loyalty oaths, interrogated and even terminated — the Brookings Institute reports that at least 29 states have or plan on passing legislation banning entire areas of study, like critical race theory.

Some legislatures, like Oklahoma are pushing even further to eliminate discussions of gender, implicit bias and intersectionality.

To add to that, Georgia has recently eliminated tenure, none of which bodes well for the once shining example of democracy.

You may be wondering how eliminating tenure relates to democracy. It’s an earned permanent appointment and is required to help ensure that the principles and protections that fall under academic freedom are not an empty promise. Without tenure an academic could be silenced by threat of termination. But yes, academics can still be fired for just cause.

What is academic freedom?

The definition of academic freedom remains largely unchanged since the American Association of University Professors first issued their 1915 declaration defining it as comprising three elements “freedom of inquiry and research; freedom of teaching within the university or college; and freedom of extramural utterance and action.”

Within healthy democracies, academic freedom, if not always respected, is at the very least, tolerated and protected. There’s an understanding that it may be invoked to inform public policy, disrupt inequitable power structures or act as an unpopular corrective on the very governments, structures, institutions and cultures that are asked to defend and support it.

In return for defending a robust academic freedom, a country’s university faculty are enabled to speak truth, act as a check on government and help foster critical and creative, participatory citizens whose formation prepares them for a lifetime of democratic engagement. But of course institutions of higher learning are one, not the only, site for teaching and learning and practising these critical skills and habits of mind.

A potential whistleblower

The academic freedom entrusted to faculty is usually described in one of two ways. The first manner aligns academic freedom with rights, privileges and freedoms. The second, brings in concepts such as responsibility, duty and whistleblower protection.

The first description is often used by critics who inevitably trot out the “ivory tower” metaphor to describe the academy. The second is found in the language used by its defenders, whose own metaphor for the university’s role in society might be “lighthouse.”

In the second concept every tenured professor is a potential whistleblower, or societal lighthouse keeper and can work in tandem with a free press for reporting on elected governments and their policies, providing transparency and accountability.

It is a delicate balance where the scales can easily be tipped in the opposite direction. It is not difficult to imagine the potential for wealthy private donors, multinational corporations, a populist mob or even the government itself, to bring it all down.

As more countries flirt with democratic backsliding, we should all be concerned. A country’s tolerance and respect for academic freedom serves as a key indicator of the health of its democracy; let’s not ignore this important warning.

 

By : Marc Spooner (Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Regina)

Date: February 8, 2022

Source: The Conversation 

https://theconversation.com/universities-the-often-overlooked-player-in-determining-healthy-democracies-175417

 

How can we improve our criminal justice system?

Harsh crime-control policies are ineffective and lead to the racialization of the prison population. Canada needs to embrace restorative justice.

Legal scholar Herbert L. Packer described two models of the criminal justice system: the crime-control model and the due-process model. The crime-control model focuses on harsh policies, laws and regulations. Its goal is to create swift and severe punishments for offenders. The due-process model, on the other hand, aims to promote policies that focus on individual rights. It tends to focus on fairness, justice and rehabilitation.

The dynamics of the crime-control model continue to reinforce prison as the default response to crime – an approach which is inadequate and deficient. A more restorative-justice/healing process for offenders would help foster human dignity, respect and well-being. That’s why Canada should move away from the crime-control model in favour of a restorative-justice model.

It is important to understand how the concept of punishment is linked to broader social theories and phenomena. Émile Durkheim, a well-known French sociologist, emphasizes how punishment is functional for society as it reaffirms the collective conscience and social solidarity. His theory provides an explanation for how moral panics and the public’s mass consumption of prison images in the media justify prisons and make people believe that they are the only way to deter crime and rehabilitate offenders.

Moving restorative justice into the mainstream

Marxist theory offers a holistic approach to the explanation of social life. It argues that society has a definite structure, as well as a central dynamic, which patterns social practices in specific and describable ways that connect various areas of social life. Marxist theory argues that the way economic and political activity is organized and controlled tend to shape the rest of society. These ideals are different from the legal and technical aspects of punishment, which tend to focus solely on deterring future criminal activity through laws that are retributive.

Retributive laws and policies focus on deterrence, denunciation and incapacitation. The truth is that crime-control, zero-tolerance and harsh policies do not work. The dominant retributive model of justice does not allow for healing the offenders because the purpose of incarceration is solely to punish them. Crime-control policies and harsh punishments lead to the increased racialization of prison populations, as well as the high levels of the marginalized and mentally ill in prisons. Crime-control policies and the punitive model of crime fail to look at how social and economic factors can make a person more prone to offend and ultimately get funneled into the criminal-justice system.

On the other hand, restorative-justice objectives look at how institutional and interpersonal relationships can address the issues of social domination that permeate through class, race, gender, culture, physical and mental ability, and sexual orientation. Restorative justice is a healing process, which focuses on social arrangements that foster human dignity, respect and well-being. The purpose of restorative justice is to address underlying systemic issues, provide victim-offender reintegration, restore harmony and address harm through various legal orders. This system further tries to help those marginalized individuals who are most vulnerable to experiencing discrimination and human rights violations to reintegrate back into society in a positive way.

Although restorative justice tries to move away from the punitive model of justice, there are some criticisms associated with restorative-justice policies as well. Many argue that the ideals associated with restorative justice can be implemented in society only once we start to question norms and alter existing social structures that make crime-control policies and the prison-punishment system necessary in the first place. There is a need for a new system of restorative justice that is based on social and economic justice, respect for all and restoration. Such a system is hard to implement in a social society where power and equality are not equally structured or equally distributed among members of the community. These inequalities and power differences legitimize the use of crime-control policies and the prison-punishment system, and pull the marginalized into the criminal justice system with the use of harsh laws and policies.

Given the failures of crime-control objectives and its exploitation of the most vulnerable populations in our society, Canada should move away from such harsh crime-control policies. We need restorative justice and a radical transformation in the way that we conceive justice and punishment. This is important because inmates need sustainable justice and rehabilitation. Alternative methods are needed to help the marginalized, those suffering from violence, mental health issues and drug addiction.

 

Navjot Kaur completed her juris doctorate degree at the University of Ottawa. Before law school, she completed an honours bachelor of arts degree in criminology and human rights and equity studies.

Bavneet Chauhan completed his juris doctorate degree at the University of Ottawa. Before law school, he completed an honours bachelor of arts degree in law and society, and a master’s degree in criminology and social justice.

 

By:  Navjot Kaur,  Bavneet Chauhan

Date: December 8, 2021

Source: Policy Options 

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/december-2021/how-can-we-improve-our-criminal-justice-system/

 

Human Rights Groups Agree: Israel Is Practicing Apartheid

The U.S. gives Israel’s military $3.8 billion a year. According to a new Amnesty report, that money funds apartheid.

One day last spring, Palestinians in Israel and the occupied West Bank declared a general strike to protest years of repression they faced under Israeli rule.

The nonviolent strike came as Israel attempted to evict seven Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, part of a longstanding effort to expand illegal Israeli settlements and transfer Jewish settlers to what had been Palestinian land and homes.

How did Israeli forces respond to this peaceful protest?

According to a new report from Amnesty International, they “arbitrarily arrested peaceful demonstrators, threw sound and stun grenades at crowds,” and “dispersed them with excessive force.” They even “fired concussion grenades at worshippers and protesters gathered in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.”

Amnesty is arguably the most influential international human rights organization in the world.

It examines conditions on the ground, applies international law, and issues reports documenting human rights violations by governments all over the world. It then mobilizes its millions of supporters to write letters, send messages, and protest.

Amnesty’s February report on Israel-Palestine goes far beyond what happened last spring. Entitled “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians,” its 280 pages dramatically illustrate Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in Israel, in the occupied territories, and in exile.

The report finds that Israel has engaged in a “system of oppression and domination” of Palestinians, including through segregation, military rule, and restrictions on Palestinians’ right to political participation. It documents how Israel has dispossessed Palestinians of their land and property and denied Palestinians their economic and social rights, among many other abuses.

According to the report, Israel has done all this “against the Palestinian population with the intent to maintain this system of oppression and domination,” with a goal of “maximizing resources for the benefit of its Jewish population at the expense of Palestinians.”

When it comes to establishing apartheid, intent is key. International law defines apartheid as inhumane acts carried out “for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

In this case, it’s a system of oppression by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians — something Israeli leaders themselves have confirmed. “Israel is not a state of all its citizens,” then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2019. It’s “the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them.”

Amnesty isn’t the first to identify and condemn Israeli apartheid. Palestinian human rights defenders, international law and UN experts, members of Congress, faith leaders, and advocates all over the world have applied the apartheid framework to Israeli violations for years.

Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem have each issued recent reports on Israeli apartheid. Amnesty’s report essentially closes the circle. There are no longer any globally known and respected human rights organizations who don’t recognize Israeli apartheid.

But even though the United States has long relied on Amnesty’s research to bolster State Department reports and other findings on human rights, U.S. government officials and their spokespeople rejected this report without even engaging with its research or conclusions.

Perhaps that wasn’t surprising. The U.S. has a long history of supporting Israel regardless of its human rights violations — from giving its military $3.8 billion annually to preventing the United Nations from holding Israel accountable for abuses.

But accountability is exactly what’s needed. U.S. foreign policy everywhere should be based on human rights, international law, and equality for all — including when it comes to Israel. That means treating Israel like any other country and cutting off military aid when it’s used for human rights abuses, something U.S. law already requires.

Amnesty’s newest report provides us with the information we need to fight for exactly that.

 

Middle East expert Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer, and a national board member of Jewish Voice for Peace. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

 

By:  Phyllis Bennis 

Date: February 9, 2022

Source: OtherWords

https://otherwords.org/human-rights-groups-agree-israel-is-practicing-apartheid/

 

Neoliberalism was born in Chile. Now it will die there

A new constitutional convention is imagining a country radically different from the one forged by murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet

When Chile overwhelmingly elected Gabriel Boric on 19 December, I was elated. Left-wing Boric had been pitted against the far-Right José Antonio Kast, who had systematically denied the climate crisis, attacked the rights of immigrants, women and the LGBTQ community, and spoken admiringly of Augusto Pinochet, the murderous dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.

Now, under 35-year-old Boric, who heads the Frente Amplio (‘Border Front’) coalition, the country has a chance for serious and meaningful change – to move away from the economic and social model forged by Pinochet. It is widely acknowledged that the neoliberal model first took hold not in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain or Ronald Reagan’s United States, but in Pinochet’s Chile. Under the dictatorship, the state was shrunk to the minimum, relinquishing to profit-driven businesses the provision of rights through the privatisation of public services.

This turned Chile into a country with housing, health, and education for the rich; a privatised pension system in which social security is at the mercy of investment profitability; a plundered natural environment; communities without access to drinking water as a result of deregulated agribusiness, and a tax system that does nothing to change the fact that the country is one of the most unequal in the world. Pinochet’s biographer, Mario Amorós, characterises the dictator’s legacy as “a model installed by blood and gunfire that benefited the elites who controlled the media and held the economic power”.

Persistent and widespread protests erupted across Chile in 2019, against extreme inequality and for a new constitution to replace the one imposed by Pinochet. The protests forced a 3am showdown on 25 November 2019 in the National Congress, under the watchful gaze of millions of Chileans following the events on television. Capitulating to public pressure, several political parties agreed to a referendum on whether to draft a new constitution.

At that referendum, which was held in October 2020, 78% of people voted ‘yes’, leading to the election of a historic ‘Constitutional Convention’ of 155 people tasked with rewriting the constitution. The convention – to which I am an adviser – includes delegates from across the political spectrum, many of whom are independent of political parties, as well as feminists and environmentalists. It met for the first time on 4 July last year, with a clear directive: drafting the first democratic constitution in Chile’s history, with gender parity and indigenous representation. It has a year to fulfil that mandate, and the public will vote again in October on whether to approve its proposed new constitution.

Convening democracy

The convention’s first move was to elect Elisa Loncón, an Indigenous Mapuche feminist university professor, as its chairperson. In her first speech in the role, she said: “Thanks to all of you for placing your trust in a Mapuche woman to change the history of this country…This convention is for all Chileans from every sector and every region and… against every system of domination…It is for a Chile that protects Mother Earth.”

Participation rules adopted by the convention are critical to its success. One notable example is the convention’s decision to hold interim public referendums for provisions that fail to obtain two-thirds approval but do receive three-fifths support, which provides a way to skirt potential roadblocks set up by conservatives. Another is known as ‘the popular initiative’, which allows any citizen to propose a constitutional provision on any issue if they can gather more than 15,000 signatures in support.

Through seven thematic commissions, the Constitutional Convention is discussing key transformations. These include declaring Chile a plurinational state – recognizing the country’s several nations and granting them degrees of autonomy – and recognizing nature as a subject with rights, to provide more tools to protect ecosystems. Another pivotal proposal is to change the role of the state from one oriented to individualism to one oriented to solidarity. Also high on the agenda is eliminating all gender-based asymmetry in public and political participation, enabling a state with equal representation in its judicial, legislative and executive branches.

One of the most groundbreaking discussions is on the institution of a National Care System. Currently, domestic and unpaid care work accounts for the majority (53%) of productive work in Chile, equivalent to 22% of GDP. Some 72% of this work is carried out by women. A National Care System would not only recognize caring occupations as work, but would pay for and professionalise these services. The long-standing demand of Chilean women for our sexual and reproductive rights – and the possible adoption of a law that permits abortion – is also at the centre of this proposal.

Many of these proposals will be strongly contested. Boric’s opponent Kast attacked both women and nature in his election campaign, committing to closing the Ministry of Women and denying global warming. The promise to extend the rights of nature will be strongly opposed by the supporters of Big Business, as it runs against Chile’s history as an exporter of raw or semi-processed materials like copper and more recently lithium, as well as export-oriented agriculture. “The Chilean model is based on extractivism, and a new Constitution could insist that a company has to maintain ecological equilibrium,” explains political scientist Claudio Fuentes. Chile’s Right occupies almost a third of the convention’s seats.

Still, Chile has begun 2022 with a sense of optimism. Gabriel Boric’s new government is charged with organising the October 2022 referendum over the new constitution. “If it’s successful, it will be a model of hope, and not only for Chile,” says constitutional expert Bruce Ackerman. During the 2019 protests, a piece of graffiti declared, ‘Neoliberalism is born and dies in Chile’. A new constitution could make this wish come true.

 

 

By: Carolina Pérez Dattari

Date: 31 January 2022

Source: Open Democracy 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/neoliberalism-was-born-in-chile-now-it-will-die-there/